Looking Up

Have you ever looked up in your house at the curtains, webs in the corner, ceiling fan blades, refrigerator (mine is full of science experiments jk) or just anything and went, "EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW?"

Well, that is what happened to me this morning. As a general rule I don't do a lot of cooking, In fact I wipe dust off my ceramic top stove more than I do food. I have cornices in my kitchen so I do not see the top of my curtains. I was waiting this morning for the tea pot to boil (I know, I know. "Watched pots never boil," which I have found to be a myth). As I was waiting, leaning on the counter, I looked up. What I saw disgusted me.

I have a long-haired cat that lives in the kitchen in the summer time and there it was. Cat hair all along the top every curtain in the kitchen!

I carefully took them down and threw them into the washer. With all the windows uncovered, the sun was streaming into the normally dark kitchen and, you guessed it, I was suddenly able to see how dirty my counters. windows, floor and cabinets really were. Gross!

So today and tomorrow I will clean my kitchen from the top down starting with the cabinets. If I hadn't looked up, I would never had seen the yucky curtains because they were hidden. And if I had not taken down the yucky curtains, I would never have seen the other yucky areas of my kitchen.

Funny, isn't it, the things that pop in your mind when something like this happens. The curtains were hidden by the cornices, just like I try to hide my sin from God. Jeremiah 17:9 tells me that "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?"

However, somewhere deep inside my being, I knew it had been a year since I had really cleaned the kitchen. I knew that there was hidden dirt there, but I just didn't want to deal with it right now. I was busy doing other "more important" things like teaching a Bible study, trying to start a book club, organizing a weekly potluck, playing with my grandchildren, visiting with out-of-town family, etc. I could go on and on just like anyone else. But I realized today that these were excuses I didn't want to deal with it.

Paul says in Romans 1:19, 25a: "because that which is know about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them....For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie." None of us want to deal with our sins. Especially when we let them pile up. We would rather allow them to continue to hide in the dark corners of our hearts and to deal with them "when I get around to it. Just too busy right now."

All that yuckiness was hidden in my dark kitchen. In fact, I preferred it that way. The same is true with my spiritual life. I don't want to see my sin. It hurts me when I realize that I have allowed so much to come between me and God. Confession is also painful because I have to admit to God that I blew it on so many levels and I disappointed Him. I John 1:5-6 says, "And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." OUCH! God and John didn't pull any punches there. If I want to return to God's light, I need to confess, no matter how painful it is.

Thank goodness the story doesn't stop there. I will spend today, and probably part of tomorrow, cleaning up my kitchen and ridding myself of all the dirt. Then it will be sparkling and no longer in danger of being shut down by the health department. In that same chapter of I John in the 9th verse God tells us, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Just like my kitchen, we can clean up our lives any time and once again be in fellowship with Him. That gives me hope and motivates me some of the time to try to keep "confessed up."

Now, it's back to my kitchen. Maybe this time I will hang only the top half of the cafe curtains. It's just too dark in there.